July 8, 2024 • 26 mins
In this episode of "Bread for the People," host Jim Serpico shares highlights from a successful catering event in the Hamptons and discusses the challenges of finding a new restaurant space. He humorously recounts a visit to a former strip club being considered for his new café. Jim delves into the concept of transactional relationships, reflecting on their prevalence in both his former TV career and current baking business. He also explores the ethics of social media influencers and paid promotions. The episode concludes with Jim's thoughts on maintaining genuine connections and the therapeutic nature of baking.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Welcome the bread for the people.I'm Jim Surperco. Happy Monday, everybody.
I hope you're all having a greatday. I know that I am.
I'm coming off a beautiful weekend.I know. In the last episode
(00:39):
I was telling a story better acatering job in the Hamptons where the people
didn't seem to be paying attention tome, my team or our peach.
As well. This weekend we hadanother catering job in the Hamptons. It
was a bridal shower and it wasunbelievable. It was unbelievable. They cared,
(01:04):
They hung out by the truck,they set up blankets, We had
a nice tent. We did someNeapolitan pizzas buffet style. I did about
five or six styles, including glutenfree pies that I pre made with my
Caputo fior Fiori glute. The Caputogluten free flower is amazing. It makes
(01:32):
a nice product and everybody was appreciativeand we had a great time, so
it gave me hope. The otherthing that happened was on Friday, I
went to look at a new space. I was going through some listings on
loop net and I put in warehousebecause now I've been struggling to find a
(01:57):
second generation rush and I was like, maybe I get a warehouse that's just
a baking facility, and a restaurantcame up in warehouse, but it didn't
come up on the restaurant. Soanyway, I called the people like,
oh see it a man, Thisrestaurant cafe was unbelievable. It was twenty
(02:22):
five hundred square feet. It hada semi open kitchen concept that had a
pizza oven built in already. Ithad beautiful counter space, it was completely
built out. Now here's the thing. It was built out in twenty nineteen,
right before the pandemic, and unfortunatelythe person who was going to operate
(02:47):
it passed away right before the pandemic, and the restaurant never opened and it
hasn't been used or rented since.I looked in some of the ovens at
the Mount Annuals with the plastic wasstill inside. The ovens would never turned
on. It's really nicely designed.And here's the rub. It's in an
(03:09):
industrial district. Okay, so weall know that's potentially a problem. There's
not a lot of homes around there, there's not a lot of night activity,
dinners are out of the question,and you know that could be okay
with me because my concept is similarto Republic in Los Angeles, but maybe
(03:35):
not as quite as Fou Fou Fancy, but I would say it's a nice
comp same with Tartine. So whatI'm saying is breakfast and lunch does appeal
to me. But now we've alsoweeded out Saturday and Sunday breakfast in lunch
because it's in an industrial district andwe have no homes around, there are
(03:57):
no businesses, so we're down tofive days a week, five days a
week, and without dinner as apossibility any night of the week, which
is generally your highest ticket item.I'm thinking about what my gross potential is,
and we know that your rent onyour restaurant should never be more than
(04:20):
ten percent of your gross. Sothis particular cafe space that's never been used
was asking six thousand dollars a monthwith three percent increases a year. So
that means I need to be grossingsixty thousand dollars a month without serving dinner
(04:43):
and without being open at all onSaturdays and Sundays, and that's not going
to happen. I could be widelyoptimistic, but I still don't think that's
going to happen. So I callup the broker for these people and I
say, listen, you guys arein the commercial real estate business. I
(05:08):
can't be paying more than ten percentof my rent, I mean of my
gross potential on rent right. Soyou're saying that you expect me to make
sixty thousand dollars, but I can'tserve dinner and I can't be open on
Saturdays and Sundays. There's no restaurantrountur that knows anything about what they're doing
(05:29):
that's going to take on this risk. So here's what I'm telling you.
I'm willing to bet on seventy fivehundred a week, which is thirty thousand
a month, And if you're interestedin talking, I'm interested, but I'm
not paying a dollar more than thatbecause I'm not putting that kind of pressure
on myself. I'm not a fooland I'm not just going to piss away
(05:49):
my money. So we could endthis conversation now, or you could take
it back to the owner and wecould have further discussions. And he says
to me, you're not wrong,but I don't think there's anything we can
do so. In my mind,I'm realizing this is the reason it hasn't
(06:11):
been rented since twenty nineteen and itstands idle. But the broker says,
listen, if you're open minded,I've got another property I'd like to show
you. I would like to helpyou find something. I believe in you.
In fact, I even called theowner of what I'm talking about and
talked about you and tell them youdo these beautiful, high end pizzas and
(06:36):
facaccia sandwiches, and he said,sure, I would entertain them, bring
them over. So I go,listen, I'm open minded. But what's
that. What do you mean openmind? He goes it's a former strip
club and he mentions the street.I go, you mean the old Crystal
Cafe. I used to hang outthere all the time. There you go.
(06:57):
Next week, I'm going to seea strip club and I'm hoping the
pole was still in there, becauseI just think it would be great to
open a family cafe with a polein the middle of it, not even
mentioned what the hell it is,and see the kids climbing up and down
and sliding. In my mind,I'm secretly thinking, I remember when Nancy
(07:17):
sixty five years old. She wasa little overweight, but I always imagine
she was good looking when she wasyounger, sliding and swinging around that pole.
I'll let you guys know what happens. So today I have no guests,
(07:39):
have a lot of people coming upon the show. I reached out
to a whole bunch of people severalweeks ago. I got a lot of
yeses, and after I got thoseyeses, I got extremely busy and I
didn't get back to people. Sothe scheduling was not the best on my
end. But I did want totalk about something, something that's been going
(08:01):
through my mind as I power throughmy journey as a breadmaker for the last
five years switching careers, and whenI was in TV and film, I
was all in. I really itwas part of my identity. I loved
what I did and I still lovethe fact that I did it, and
(08:24):
there's certain things about it I missed. But I had a lot of friends
in the TV and film business alwayslived in Long Island. There weren't many
producers in TV and film that didwhat I did that lived in Long Island.
And one of the reasons that Ithink I was able to succeed is
(08:46):
I would network. I'd love thenetwork, and I would get on a
plane a week a month Monday throughThursday night, so it's really four days
a month. I would always behome by the weekend and that would fly
out to LA and I would takemeetings with writers to talk about ideas,
to give them ideas, we wouldpackage projects. We would go out to
(09:09):
the networks and pitch those projects.And when I was in LA Monday through
Wednesday night, I would always setup dinners with agents or managers or network
executives. And I did that religiouslyfor many years, and in some ways,
I think I had more meetings thanthe people who lived in LA,
(09:31):
because I'm not sure if they wereso aggressive in packing their schedule and doing
these social dinners. And I reallyfelt a kinship to a lot of these
people and ended up working with themon various projects for many years. And
I remember one night going out withan agent to a Clippers game, and
a lot of these agencies have seatsand season tickets to all the sporting events
(09:56):
in LA, and this agent,who was friend of mine, brought me
to my first Clippers game and wesat on the floor and I'm not the
biggest basketball fan, but it wasexciting to be sitting on the floor of
a professional basketball game in Los Angeles. It was cool. You see the
(10:18):
action, You see the players rightyou know, coming right up to you
see the celebrity sitting around the court, and it was a good night.
And I remember the agent saying somethingto me that caught me off guard.
He said, Jim, our relationshipis transactional. This is a guy I've
(10:39):
been to his house, been outwith many times, and I didn't know
what to make of the statement.I don't know why he said it at
the time. There must have beena reason. I don't know exactly what
the reason was, and a transactionalrelationship was not something I was extremely familiar
(11:01):
with. I could figure it outthat it had to do with we were
benefiting from each other's relationship, butI didn't see it any different than any
of the other relationships I had inshow business. In fact, I worked
so much that a good percentage ofmy friends were in show business, and
(11:22):
I never thought of those relationships atthe time as transactional. So I've been
thinking about it a lot lately,and I've done a deeper dive into what
a transactional relationship is. And I'msure many of you know what it is,
but officially, it's the type ofinteraction or connection between individuals that is
(11:50):
primarily based on the exchange of goodservices or benefits. In these relationships,
each party provides something of value tothe other, with the expectation of receiving
something of equivalent value in return.I never went into my Hollywood relationships thinking
(12:13):
about this at all, and I'mnot sure if my Hollywood friends were thinking
about that in terms of me either, but I guess this guy was.
I wonder and think about all therelationships I'm forming now, even with some
(12:35):
of you that are listening to thisshow who are friends of mine in the
bread and baking business. Is ourrelationship transactional? And if it is,
that might not be such a badthing. It's not always bad to have
a transactional relationship. Again, Iwasn't even aware of the phrase of the
(12:56):
terminology. I was connecting with peopleon an emotional level. I learned about
their families, their children. Iwanted to understand this more, and I've
been looking into it now, soI'll give you some other examples of transactional
(13:20):
relationships because maybe it's something you wantto think about. Maybe you want to
take an inventory of your relationships,just to be aware of whether or not
your relationships are transactional and why thateven matters. And I'm going to get
to that somewhere along my ramble.Okay, a few examples of transactional relationships,
(13:45):
and these are pretty obvious. Thecustomer and the retailer. A customer
buys a product from a store andthe store provides the product in exchange for
payment. That's pretty obvious, right. An employer and an employee. This
is an interesting one because I've beenan employer who have had friends of mine
(14:09):
that were employees. An employee worksfor a company and receives a salary wages
in return. The relationship is basedon the exchange of labor for compensation.
So I guess when I ran DennisLeary's production company for twenty five years,
(14:30):
and of course we were friends,but I guess that was a transactional relationship.
A service provider and a client.Maybe you have a mobile food truck
and you do a corporate event everyweek and the person who hires you becomes
your friend. That is a transactionalrelationship right because you're providing a service and
(14:54):
your friend is paying you for thatwork. A landlord and tenant. A
tenant rents an apartment from landlord,and the landlord provides housing and the tenant
pays rent, So those are prettyobvious. I wanted to get into this
further and because again, I havea habit of making friends with people in
(15:20):
the business that I'm in because Ilike people. Ironically. I say ironically
because my joke growing up and asa young professional was I can't stand people
because I was frustrated by the incompetenceof people on the road, or people
not doing their job or trying toget an appointment at a doctor's office.
(15:41):
I still feel that frustration, butby and large, I have realized at
this stage in my life, Ireally do enjoy people, which is one
of the things I love about thebaking business that I'm in. But I
learned that to some gray area transactionover relationships where one or both parties may
(16:02):
not fully recognize the transactional nature ofthe relationship. I think that was me
for a while. So an exampleof a gray area or a gray transactional
relationship is a friendship with hidden motives. One person befriends another primarily to gain
access to their social circle, ortheir professional network, or their resources.
(16:26):
The person being befriended may believe thefriendship is genuine and unaware of the underlying
transactional motives. Another example is amentorship with expectations. A mentor may offer
guidance and support to a mentee,secretly expecting loyalty, future favors, or
(16:52):
return on investment in some form.The mentee may view the relationship as purely
supportive of not recognizing them mentors underlyingand expectations. There's quite a few more,
and I'll give you some examples ofromantic relationships for social status, favor
based friendships, networking under the guiseof friendship, and this one which I've
(17:15):
seen a million times. Volunteering withhidden agendas. Someone volunteers their time or
resources to a cause or an organizationprimarily to build a resume, gain social
recognition, will secure future career opportunities. The organization might view the volunteers and
(17:37):
involvement as purely altruistic, not understandingthe personal gains sought. I've actually been
not often, but I've been accusedof this. I'm one of the co
founders of Long Island Pizza Strong,and we did our second event recently,
(17:59):
got two hundred and fifty pizzerias fromaround Long Island to raise money all on
one night. We'd all sell asmany pizza pies as we can and donate
five dollars towards the sale of thatpie to a police related charity. And
myself and two other partners have beenhelping organize this. That was our second
one. We raised one hundred andeighty thousand dollars to four police related charities.
(18:25):
And somebody on social media had saidthat I am anti police, racist
and doing this for some hidden agenda. I don't know what the fuck they're
talking about, but whatever, butI could see how this could be a
problem in many situations. And I'veseen celebrities do volunteer work open charities and
(18:48):
they could see through that they're doingit to make up for something else,
specifically to change the image of somewrong that they did. And I was
thinking about these transactional relationships a littlemore, and I wanted to get your
opinion on certain things. One ofthe things that I'd like to know how
(19:15):
you feel is when you see someoneon social media, like a social media
influencer talking about how great a restaurantis. Now, this very often is
(19:36):
actually a transactional relationship between the influencerand the restaurant, and we as the
viewer and the content watcher, arenot always aware of that relationship and what
it really is. Is there amoral dilemma? What are the rules should
(20:00):
we know if an influencer is beingpaid to promote a restaurant. If an
influencer has a following and builds fromfive thousand to twenty five thousand and is
(20:21):
funny, and people are interacting withtheir content and going to the restaurants that
influencer is promoting, but not realizingthat person is getting paid five hundred dollars
a month one thousand dollars a month? Is that right? Where's that wrong?
(20:44):
I don't have the answer. Butif one day an influencer is talking
shit about a certain restaurant and thenext day you see that influencer promoting that
restaurant and high in the scenes sayingI gotta do what I gotta do.
They're paying me eight hundred dollars amonth, what does it mean to us
(21:07):
watching it? Should there be adisclaimer that says this review is part of
a paid partnership. Should there besome kind of transparency? Is it a
moral if the influencer doesn't disclose thatthe review is paid for. I'm asking
(21:29):
an honest question. I'm not tryingto lead you anywhere. I want to
know what you think. Is therea conflict of interest? I don't think
we're aware of half these people,Like some of these people that are on
there. What is the motivation forbecoming an influencer? Is it just to
get likes? I think it isin some cases recognition ego. I love
(21:55):
it, I love chasing the dopamine. That's not always enough. When you
see somebody really hustling at it withI don't know, fifty thousand followers and
they're spending so much time that theycan't be making a living some other way.
There's a good chance they're making moneyfrom the posts they're making. Now,
(22:18):
there are plenty of people out therethat do disclose the partnerships and the
relationships. But I'll give you anotherexample of a transaction or relationship that bugs
me is when I see these pizzamakers who are at LA's Pizza Expo and
baking in the booths right, they'rebeing flown out there by the corporation,
(22:41):
which, by the way, Iwould love to be flown out by a
corporation and baking their booth. SoI'm not putting that down at all.
I'm not saying am I jealous yet, because I want the free flight,
the free hotel, and I wantto be wearing a gray jacket and baking
for people. I definitely think,you know, at that point, you've
(23:02):
reached a certain level, which isa cool thing, and I aspire to
reach that level. But then whenthey're talking about how great the oven is,
but the next year they're in anotheroven booth saying that oven stinks that
I was working for last year.This is the oven that the only one
I use. You're full of shit, guy, Like now you're talking to
(23:25):
company talk. I loved what ChefLeo, Butsiri said last week. He's
not telling people what to use.He's asking you to make your own decision.
He has corporate sponsorships, but he'snot giving you the heart to sell.
And there could be two great ovens, there could be ten great ovens.
There could be ten types of brandsof tomatoes that are great. They're
(23:48):
great for different people because people growup with different tastes. But one of
the reasons I've thought about all thisso much is there's these transactional relationships are
way more prevalent than I ever realizedin such ways. And when I left
officially the television business, which oneday maybe I go back, but the
(24:12):
one thing that struck me was,I don't talk to these people anymore.
Did we have an emotional connection becausethey're not in my life. They don't
like my baking posts, they don'tcall me on the phone. They don't
(24:32):
necessarily return my phone calls if Icall to say hello, because they're busy,
right, They're busy in their careers. People who tend to succeed in
the entertainment business on the executive sideare workaholics in a good way. But
I do find that there's no needfor the personal connection with that person you
(24:56):
worked with for twenty years. Thinkabout that as I make my relationships in
the hospitality business, and I'm moreaware of it than I was when I
was in entertainment. And I'm moreaware of it when I hear and see
a pizzaiolo wearing a brand on theirjacket telling me how great this oven or
(25:22):
flower is. I don't take itor take them at their word. I
wonder if they're a car salesman sellingme an oven they're getting paid to talk
about, or they're getting a freeoven and they want to make sure they
keep getting those free ovens. Transactionalrelationships. That's what's on my mind.
(25:49):
I appreciate you guys listening. Thisis a short one. I hope you
found it interesting. I appreciate youletting me get it out. As we
know, bread for the people ismy secret bread therapy. Have a great
(26:10):
week, everybody. Blessed be thebread
Welcome the bread for the people.I'm Jim Surperco. Happy Monday, everybody.
I hope you're all having a greatday. I know that I am.
I'm coming off a beautiful weekend.I know. In the last episode
(00:39):
I was telling a story better acatering job in the Hamptons where the people
didn't seem to be paying attention tome, my team or our peach.
As well. This weekend we hadanother catering job in the Hamptons. It
was a bridal shower and it wasunbelievable. It was unbelievable. They cared,
(01:04):
They hung out by the truck,they set up blankets, We had
a nice tent. We did someNeapolitan pizzas buffet style. I did about
five or six styles, including glutenfree pies that I pre made with my
Caputo fior Fiori glute. The Caputogluten free flower is amazing. It makes
(01:32):
a nice product and everybody was appreciativeand we had a great time, so
it gave me hope. The otherthing that happened was on Friday, I
went to look at a new space. I was going through some listings on
loop net and I put in warehousebecause now I've been struggling to find a
(01:57):
second generation rush and I was like, maybe I get a warehouse that's just
a baking facility, and a restaurantcame up in warehouse, but it didn't
come up on the restaurant. Soanyway, I called the people like,
oh see it a man, Thisrestaurant cafe was unbelievable. It was twenty
(02:22):
five hundred square feet. It hada semi open kitchen concept that had a
pizza oven built in already. Ithad beautiful counter space, it was completely
built out. Now here's the thing. It was built out in twenty nineteen,
right before the pandemic, and unfortunatelythe person who was going to operate
(02:47):
it passed away right before the pandemic, and the restaurant never opened and it
hasn't been used or rented since.I looked in some of the ovens at
the Mount Annuals with the plastic wasstill inside. The ovens would never turned
on. It's really nicely designed.And here's the rub. It's in an
(03:09):
industrial district. Okay, so weall know that's potentially a problem. There's
not a lot of homes around there, there's not a lot of night activity,
dinners are out of the question,and you know that could be okay
with me because my concept is similarto Republic in Los Angeles, but maybe
(03:35):
not as quite as Fou Fou Fancy, but I would say it's a nice
comp same with Tartine. So whatI'm saying is breakfast and lunch does appeal
to me. But now we've alsoweeded out Saturday and Sunday breakfast in lunch
because it's in an industrial district andwe have no homes around, there are
(03:57):
no businesses, so we're down tofive days a week, five days a
week, and without dinner as apossibility any night of the week, which
is generally your highest ticket item.I'm thinking about what my gross potential is,
and we know that your rent onyour restaurant should never be more than
(04:20):
ten percent of your gross. Sothis particular cafe space that's never been used
was asking six thousand dollars a monthwith three percent increases a year. So
that means I need to be grossingsixty thousand dollars a month without serving dinner
(04:43):
and without being open at all onSaturdays and Sundays, and that's not going
to happen. I could be widelyoptimistic, but I still don't think that's
going to happen. So I callup the broker for these people and I
say, listen, you guys arein the commercial real estate business. I
(05:08):
can't be paying more than ten percentof my rent, I mean of my
gross potential on rent right. Soyou're saying that you expect me to make
sixty thousand dollars, but I can'tserve dinner and I can't be open on
Saturdays and Sundays. There's no restaurantrountur that knows anything about what they're doing
(05:29):
that's going to take on this risk. So here's what I'm telling you.
I'm willing to bet on seventy fivehundred a week, which is thirty thousand
a month, And if you're interestedin talking, I'm interested, but I'm
not paying a dollar more than thatbecause I'm not putting that kind of pressure
on myself. I'm not a fooland I'm not just going to piss away
(05:49):
my money. So we could endthis conversation now, or you could take
it back to the owner and wecould have further discussions. And he says
to me, you're not wrong,but I don't think there's anything we can
do so. In my mind,I'm realizing this is the reason it hasn't
(06:11):
been rented since twenty nineteen and itstands idle. But the broker says,
listen, if you're open minded,I've got another property I'd like to show
you. I would like to helpyou find something. I believe in you.
In fact, I even called theowner of what I'm talking about and
talked about you and tell them youdo these beautiful, high end pizzas and
(06:36):
facaccia sandwiches, and he said,sure, I would entertain them, bring
them over. So I go,listen, I'm open minded. But what's
that. What do you mean openmind? He goes it's a former strip
club and he mentions the street.I go, you mean the old Crystal
Cafe. I used to hang outthere all the time. There you go.
(06:57):
Next week, I'm going to seea strip club and I'm hoping the
pole was still in there, becauseI just think it would be great to
open a family cafe with a polein the middle of it, not even
mentioned what the hell it is,and see the kids climbing up and down
and sliding. In my mind,I'm secretly thinking, I remember when Nancy
(07:17):
sixty five years old. She wasa little overweight, but I always imagine
she was good looking when she wasyounger, sliding and swinging around that pole.
I'll let you guys know what happens. So today I have no guests,
(07:39):
have a lot of people coming upon the show. I reached out
to a whole bunch of people severalweeks ago. I got a lot of
yeses, and after I got thoseyeses, I got extremely busy and I
didn't get back to people. Sothe scheduling was not the best on my
end. But I did want totalk about something, something that's been going
(08:01):
through my mind as I power throughmy journey as a breadmaker for the last
five years switching careers, and whenI was in TV and film, I
was all in. I really itwas part of my identity. I loved
what I did and I still lovethe fact that I did it, and
(08:24):
there's certain things about it I missed. But I had a lot of friends
in the TV and film business alwayslived in Long Island. There weren't many
producers in TV and film that didwhat I did that lived in Long Island.
And one of the reasons that Ithink I was able to succeed is
(08:46):
I would network. I'd love thenetwork, and I would get on a
plane a week a month Monday throughThursday night, so it's really four days
a month. I would always behome by the weekend and that would fly
out to LA and I would takemeetings with writers to talk about ideas,
to give them ideas, we wouldpackage projects. We would go out to
(09:09):
the networks and pitch those projects.And when I was in LA Monday through
Wednesday night, I would always setup dinners with agents or managers or network
executives. And I did that religiouslyfor many years, and in some ways,
I think I had more meetings thanthe people who lived in LA,
(09:31):
because I'm not sure if they wereso aggressive in packing their schedule and doing
these social dinners. And I reallyfelt a kinship to a lot of these
people and ended up working with themon various projects for many years. And
I remember one night going out withan agent to a Clippers game, and
a lot of these agencies have seatsand season tickets to all the sporting events
(09:56):
in LA, and this agent,who was friend of mine, brought me
to my first Clippers game and wesat on the floor and I'm not the
biggest basketball fan, but it wasexciting to be sitting on the floor of
a professional basketball game in Los Angeles. It was cool. You see the
(10:18):
action, You see the players rightyou know, coming right up to you
see the celebrity sitting around the court, and it was a good night.
And I remember the agent saying somethingto me that caught me off guard.
He said, Jim, our relationshipis transactional. This is a guy I've
(10:39):
been to his house, been outwith many times, and I didn't know
what to make of the statement.I don't know why he said it at
the time. There must have beena reason. I don't know exactly what
the reason was, and a transactionalrelationship was not something I was extremely familiar
(11:01):
with. I could figure it outthat it had to do with we were
benefiting from each other's relationship, butI didn't see it any different than any
of the other relationships I had inshow business. In fact, I worked
so much that a good percentage ofmy friends were in show business, and
(11:22):
I never thought of those relationships atthe time as transactional. So I've been
thinking about it a lot lately,and I've done a deeper dive into what
a transactional relationship is. And I'msure many of you know what it is,
but officially, it's the type ofinteraction or connection between individuals that is
(11:50):
primarily based on the exchange of goodservices or benefits. In these relationships,
each party provides something of value tothe other, with the expectation of receiving
something of equivalent value in return.I never went into my Hollywood relationships thinking
(12:13):
about this at all, and I'mnot sure if my Hollywood friends were thinking
about that in terms of me either, but I guess this guy was.
I wonder and think about all therelationships I'm forming now, even with some
(12:35):
of you that are listening to thisshow who are friends of mine in the
bread and baking business. Is ourrelationship transactional? And if it is,
that might not be such a badthing. It's not always bad to have
a transactional relationship. Again, Iwasn't even aware of the phrase of the
(12:56):
terminology. I was connecting with peopleon an emotional level. I learned about
their families, their children. Iwanted to understand this more, and I've
been looking into it now, soI'll give you some other examples of transactional
(13:20):
relationships because maybe it's something you wantto think about. Maybe you want to
take an inventory of your relationships,just to be aware of whether or not
your relationships are transactional and why thateven matters. And I'm going to get
to that somewhere along my ramble.Okay, a few examples of transactional relationships,
(13:45):
and these are pretty obvious. Thecustomer and the retailer. A customer
buys a product from a store andthe store provides the product in exchange for
payment. That's pretty obvious, right. An employer and an employee. This
is an interesting one because I've beenan employer who have had friends of mine
(14:09):
that were employees. An employee worksfor a company and receives a salary wages
in return. The relationship is basedon the exchange of labor for compensation.
So I guess when I ran DennisLeary's production company for twenty five years,
(14:30):
and of course we were friends,but I guess that was a transactional relationship.
A service provider and a client.Maybe you have a mobile food truck
and you do a corporate event everyweek and the person who hires you becomes
your friend. That is a transactionalrelationship right because you're providing a service and
(14:54):
your friend is paying you for thatwork. A landlord and tenant. A
tenant rents an apartment from landlord,and the landlord provides housing and the tenant
pays rent, So those are prettyobvious. I wanted to get into this
further and because again, I havea habit of making friends with people in
(15:20):
the business that I'm in because Ilike people. Ironically. I say ironically
because my joke growing up and asa young professional was I can't stand people
because I was frustrated by the incompetenceof people on the road, or people
not doing their job or trying toget an appointment at a doctor's office.
(15:41):
I still feel that frustration, butby and large, I have realized at
this stage in my life, Ireally do enjoy people, which is one
of the things I love about thebaking business that I'm in. But I
learned that to some gray area transactionover relationships where one or both parties may
(16:02):
not fully recognize the transactional nature ofthe relationship. I think that was me
for a while. So an exampleof a gray area or a gray transactional
relationship is a friendship with hidden motives. One person befriends another primarily to gain
access to their social circle, ortheir professional network, or their resources.
(16:26):
The person being befriended may believe thefriendship is genuine and unaware of the underlying
transactional motives. Another example is amentorship with expectations. A mentor may offer
guidance and support to a mentee,secretly expecting loyalty, future favors, or
(16:52):
return on investment in some form.The mentee may view the relationship as purely
supportive of not recognizing them mentors underlyingand expectations. There's quite a few more,
and I'll give you some examples ofromantic relationships for social status, favor
based friendships, networking under the guiseof friendship, and this one which I've
(17:15):
seen a million times. Volunteering withhidden agendas. Someone volunteers their time or
resources to a cause or an organizationprimarily to build a resume, gain social
recognition, will secure future career opportunities. The organization might view the volunteers and
(17:37):
involvement as purely altruistic, not understandingthe personal gains sought. I've actually been
not often, but I've been accusedof this. I'm one of the co
founders of Long Island Pizza Strong,and we did our second event recently,
(17:59):
got two hundred and fifty pizzerias fromaround Long Island to raise money all on
one night. We'd all sell asmany pizza pies as we can and donate
five dollars towards the sale of thatpie to a police related charity. And
myself and two other partners have beenhelping organize this. That was our second
one. We raised one hundred andeighty thousand dollars to four police related charities.
(18:25):
And somebody on social media had saidthat I am anti police, racist
and doing this for some hidden agenda. I don't know what the fuck they're
talking about, but whatever, butI could see how this could be a
problem in many situations. And I'veseen celebrities do volunteer work open charities and
(18:48):
they could see through that they're doingit to make up for something else,
specifically to change the image of somewrong that they did. And I was
thinking about these transactional relationships a littlemore, and I wanted to get your
opinion on certain things. One ofthe things that I'd like to know how
(19:15):
you feel is when you see someoneon social media, like a social media
influencer talking about how great a restaurantis. Now, this very often is
(19:36):
actually a transactional relationship between the influencerand the restaurant, and we as the
viewer and the content watcher, arenot always aware of that relationship and what
it really is. Is there amoral dilemma? What are the rules should
(20:00):
we know if an influencer is beingpaid to promote a restaurant. If an
influencer has a following and builds fromfive thousand to twenty five thousand and is
(20:21):
funny, and people are interacting withtheir content and going to the restaurants that
influencer is promoting, but not realizingthat person is getting paid five hundred dollars
a month one thousand dollars a month? Is that right? Where's that wrong?
(20:44):
I don't have the answer. Butif one day an influencer is talking
shit about a certain restaurant and thenext day you see that influencer promoting that
restaurant and high in the scenes sayingI gotta do what I gotta do.
They're paying me eight hundred dollars amonth, what does it mean to us
(21:07):
watching it? Should there be adisclaimer that says this review is part of
a paid partnership. Should there besome kind of transparency? Is it a
moral if the influencer doesn't disclose thatthe review is paid for. I'm asking
(21:29):
an honest question. I'm not tryingto lead you anywhere. I want to
know what you think. Is therea conflict of interest? I don't think
we're aware of half these people,Like some of these people that are on
there. What is the motivation forbecoming an influencer? Is it just to
get likes? I think it isin some cases recognition ego. I love
(21:55):
it, I love chasing the dopamine. That's not always enough. When you
see somebody really hustling at it withI don't know, fifty thousand followers and
they're spending so much time that theycan't be making a living some other way.
There's a good chance they're making moneyfrom the posts they're making. Now,
(22:18):
there are plenty of people out therethat do disclose the partnerships and the
relationships. But I'll give you anotherexample of a transaction or relationship that bugs
me is when I see these pizzamakers who are at LA's Pizza Expo and
baking in the booths right, they'rebeing flown out there by the corporation,
(22:41):
which, by the way, Iwould love to be flown out by a
corporation and baking their booth. SoI'm not putting that down at all.
I'm not saying am I jealous yet, because I want the free flight,
the free hotel, and I wantto be wearing a gray jacket and baking
for people. I definitely think,you know, at that point, you've
(23:02):
reached a certain level, which isa cool thing, and I aspire to
reach that level. But then whenthey're talking about how great the oven is,
but the next year they're in anotheroven booth saying that oven stinks that
I was working for last year.This is the oven that the only one
I use. You're full of shit, guy, Like now you're talking to
(23:25):
company talk. I loved what ChefLeo, Butsiri said last week. He's
not telling people what to use.He's asking you to make your own decision.
He has corporate sponsorships, but he'snot giving you the heart to sell.
And there could be two great ovens, there could be ten great ovens.
There could be ten types of brandsof tomatoes that are great. They're
(23:48):
great for different people because people growup with different tastes. But one of
the reasons I've thought about all thisso much is there's these transactional relationships are
way more prevalent than I ever realizedin such ways. And when I left
officially the television business, which oneday maybe I go back, but the
(24:12):
one thing that struck me was,I don't talk to these people anymore.
Did we have an emotional connection becausethey're not in my life. They don't
like my baking posts, they don'tcall me on the phone. They don't
(24:32):
necessarily return my phone calls if Icall to say hello, because they're busy,
right, They're busy in their careers. People who tend to succeed in
the entertainment business on the executive sideare workaholics in a good way. But
I do find that there's no needfor the personal connection with that person you
(24:56):
worked with for twenty years. Thinkabout that as I make my relationships in
the hospitality business, and I'm moreaware of it than I was when I
was in entertainment. And I'm moreaware of it when I hear and see
a pizzaiolo wearing a brand on theirjacket telling me how great this oven or
(25:22):
flower is. I don't take itor take them at their word. I
wonder if they're a car salesman sellingme an oven they're getting paid to talk
about, or they're getting a freeoven and they want to make sure they
keep getting those free ovens. Transactionalrelationships. That's what's on my mind.
(25:49):
I appreciate you guys listening. Thisis a short one. I hope you
found it interesting. I appreciate youletting me get it out. As we
know, bread for the people ismy secret bread therapy. Have a great
(26:10):
week, everybody. Blessed be thebread
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